Nottingham Forest’s squad depth might actually prove an issue

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We said it would be a test, and it looks as if they failed it.

Although that doesn’t mean everything should be doom and gloom around the City Ground. How does the saying go? “You learn more from failure than you do from success.” Well, that needs to be the attitude going forward.

As covered on FFC last week in the build-up to the game, we stated that Sunday’s game against Wigan would be a perfect test for how Nottingham Forest, and more importantly Sabri Lamouchi would be able to cope with the number of injuries that have been going through the squad.

Forest have had things relatively straight forward so far during their impressive start to the season, but this really acted as a way of working out whether or not the work they had done so far this campaign was down to the efforts of Lamouchi, the players, a combination of the two, or just good luck in how things have panned.

As not just the result, but the performance showed, there is still some work to do when it comes to how Forest can attack the rest of the season.

Whilst they may have a lot of strength in depth in terms of quantity, with 31 players on their books (via Transfermarkt), as well as those coming through the academy, they might not necessarily have the strength in depth in terms of quality to get them through the season.

Now it is up to Lamouchi to turn that quantity into the sort of quality that he can rely on throughout the season.

Injuries like these are bound to pop up again throughout the rest of the season, so the reserves have to be at a level where they are capable of being a help rather than a hindrance whenever they step up to the plate.

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They certainly proved that wasn’t the case on this occasion with defeat at the weekend and similarly poor performances with a weaker team could be season-defining.

When he was first appointed, Lamouchi joked about how this league was ‘the worst in the world’ and having been given the first real shock to the system, now he just has to show that he has learned from it.